Not yet having become a parent I am frequently amused by how competitive parents can be. If you put a few parents of toddlers in a room together the conversation inevitably turns to a discussion about which of the genius offspring walked first, talked first, ate carrots first, composed poetry first and so on.

Gun nuts are no exception. Instead of training their child with Baby Einstein DVDs and Sesame Street they are exposing them to the sagely advice of Chris Costa and Travis Haley and competing to see who is the youngest prodigy to learn to field strip an AR-15.

I can’t even be sure if I had seen a gun by the time I turned two, let alone learnt how to maintain one.

[ Many thanks to jdun1911 for emailing me the link. ]